For those who use linux and /bin/bash… did you know that you can export both variables -and- functions?

The story– if you use Linux and the shell “GNU Bash” (echo $SHELL), you may know that you can create custom environment variables to modify your local runtime. Some executed programs may optionally look for env variables to condition how they run. It’s important to know that when you execute a program, a new process is forked and an exact copy of your environment at-that-time (including variables) defines the new environment. Any new env changes are local to that forked process. When you execute those programs, you may need to let them “see” your custom variables. In Bash, you do that with the command ‘export’. If you have a group of commands, you can envelope them within a function. Guess what? If you want that executed program to see your custom function… you can ‘export’ it!


$ function resolveln {
for link in $(find . -type l) {
echo "readlink -e ${link}";
}
}
$ export resolveln
$ ./myprogram # new process; has access to shell function


Check out my new blog focused on software configuration management (SCM) and programming best practices.

www.daveonscm.com

I like to keep fepus.net a bit more free form… this new blog will allow me to jabber about works stuff. It’s equally as interesting - trust me! but no pictures of vacations or updates on our (Amy too!) life in Santa Cruz, CA.

This latest news report on home price slump has a great quote:

The most expensive market in the latest report was San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif., where the median home price $760,000. That was up $20,000, or 2.7 percent from a year earlier, but down $19,000, or 2.4 percent, from the third quarter and off $35,000, or 4.4 percent, from the second-quarter peak.

Amy and I really enjoy living by the beach [map], but not for that price. We’ll keep renting for the time being.

Blogging from the cellphone…

At this very moment I am at Google HQ (bldg 41) in Mountain View… listening to Bram Moolenaar give a lecture on “Seven habits for effective text editing [with ViM] 2.0″…. can life get ANY better?

It’s been a busy three weeks with travel to Boston, Chicago, San Jose, Houston, and Albuquerque. Most has been for work save for my bachelor party in Chicago — steaks at Gene & Georgetti’s, cigars and top shelf at The Peninsula, and a last call at the dive bar Pippens. Tame and “top shelf” by design.

Enroute to Houston this week, I read an article in United’s Feb’07 monthly Hemisphere magazine talking about ’sushi etiquette’. Over the years, I’ve developed a critic’s palate for dragon rolls and seared tuna sashimi — the best to-date had in Vancouver. Along the way I’ve learned various Do’s and Don’ts. Here are some things I’ve learned…

• vertical chopsticks – never stick your chopsticks vertically in a bowl of rice — at ones funeral, a bowl of rice is placed on the casket and this configuration symbolizes a last meal.
• the placement — always put down your chopsticks with tips pointing to the left — in past times, it was believed that everyone was right handed thus this was the proper way.
• food transfer — never transfer food amongst people between chopsticks — in past times, it was a ritual for family members to mourn a deceased member by passing an extracted bone between each others’ chopsticks.

In the aforementioned article, they advise to never rub the ends together to remove splinters as if lighting a camp fire. My advise….. never eat at a sushi bar that serves cheap chopsticks.